.\" tapeinfo.1  Document copyright 2000 Eric Lee Green
.\"  Program Copyright 2000 Eric Lee Green <eric@badtux.org>
.\"  Copyright 2007-2008 by Robert Nelson <robertn@the-nelsons.org>
.\"
.\" This is free documentation; you can redistribute it and/or
.\" modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
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.\" License along with this manual; if not, write to the Free
.\" Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139,
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.\"
.TH TAPEINFO 1 TAPEINFO1.0
.SH NAME
tapeinfo \- report SCSI tape device info
.SH SYNOPSIS
tapeinfo -f <scsi-generic-device>
.SH DESCRIPTION
The 
.B tapeinfo
command reads various information from SCSI tape drives that is not
generally available via most vendors' tape drivers. It issues raw
commands directly to the tape drive, using either the operating system's
SCSI generic device ( e.g. /dev/sg0 on Linux, /dev/pass0 on FreeBSD) or
the raw SCSI I/O ioctl on a tape device on some operating systems. 
.P
One good time to use 'tapeinfo' is immediately after a tape i/o operation has
failed. On tape drives that support HP's 'tapealert' API, 'tapeinfo' will
report a more exact description of what went wrong. 
.P
Do be aware that 'tapeinfo' is not a substitute for your operating system's
own 'mt' or similar tape driver control program. It is intended to supplement,
not replace, programs like 'mt' that access your operating system's tape
driver in order to report or set information. 
.SH OPTIONS
The first argument, given following
.B -f
, is the SCSI generic device corresponding to your tape drive.
Consult your operating system's documentation for more information (for
example, under Linux these are generally start at /dev/sg0 
under FreeBSD these start at /dev/pass0).
.P
Under FreeBSD, 'camcontrol devlist' will tell you what SCSI devices you
have, along with which 'pass' device controls them. Under Linux,
"cat /proc/scsi/scsi" will tell you what SCSI devices you have.

.SH BUGS AND LIMITATIONS
.P
This program has only been tested on Linux with a limited number of
tape drives (HP DDS4, Seagate AIT). 
.P
.SH AVAILABILITY
.B tapeinfo
is currently being maintained by Robert Nelson <robertnelson@users.sourceforge.net> 
as part of the 'mtx' suite of programs. The 'mtx' home page is 
http://mtx.sourceforge.net and the actual code is currently available there and via 
SVN from http://sourceforge.net/projects/mtx. 

.SH SEE ALSO
.BR mt (1), mtx (1), scsitape (1), scsieject (1), loaderinfo (1)
